Confessions of a First-Time Mum

by Poppy Dolan

  As I slam the lid, a flurry of limbs in pink Lycra passes by my eye line. I don’t believe it. It’s the mum-mum with ankle-bashing Scooter Boy and an equally lithe and limber mum-mum mate. They’re sprinting like gazelles. Gazelles with manicures.

  Spare Mum-mum smirks at me and I catch my own whiff again: regurgitated biscuit and curdled dairy. Just as they pass the other box hedge I hear her say to Original Mum-mum: ‘Funny, I thought Will and Adrian used the same cleaners as us. New to her profession, by the look of it.’ And then there’s a burst of shrill tittering as they gallop away.

  Just go and fuck yourself, I think. Because I’m scared of confrontation these days, but also of polluting Cherry’s little pink ears.

  More excellent responses come to me as I march home: ‘Nothing wrong with being a cleaner, you know. Better than being a dirty slapper, at any rate.’ Or, ‘Friend of Will’s, are you? Funny, because I was just round at his and he said you were a stupid old cow!’ Or, ‘Has anyone told you that you look like a Barbie factory seconds sale?’ OK, so not exactly excellent, but energetic, anyway.

  It’s not till we’re home and I’m puffed out by the slight uphill push and all my aimless rage and Cherry is back to wiggling on her vom-proof mat that I remember the post. Oh Christ, the blog post.

  Chapter 6

  I suppose one benefit to Ted being so far away for so very long is that I have the whole place alone to fret, make my hair greasy with pulling on it and no one is here to see me have a large glass of wine with my beans on toast for lunch. Even Ted, with his head-in-his-work iPhone, would have to clock something a bit off with all that.

  I keep having to log in and check my blog stats. 8,000 unique views. I don’t know if I should count that on top of the Facebook views through the other blogger’s page – now at 19,000 – or if these are people who came to my site because they read it first through her and are coming to check me out.

  Blimey.

  Fuck.

  I look at Gin and Sippy Cups’ Facebook again. Not just all those views, but around 3,000 comments, too. I start to read some. Loads of fist bump and crying-face emojis, but also longer comments from parents admitting they are in charge/on their own at the moment and absolutely bricking it. One simply says, ‘Welcome to my world #singleparent #everygoddamnday’ and I realise my post must have seemed ungrateful to people on their own for much longer than a week. Before I know it, I’m replying to their post, about to say thanks for the reality check, when I remember that it would appear under my real name and then the whole sodding game would be over.

  I can’t have people know it’s me. I can’t have Ted see all these steaming-mad things I’ve written about him. Sure, he’s not an innocent party right now but I do love him, at the end of the day. He is Cherry’s dad and I can’t ever stop loving him for giving me this butterball to love. And how would it look to his super-corporate clients that he has a wife so unhappy she vents the details of their family life on the web? Not to mention the divorce papers he’d be emailing over. Can’t really see the selling point in being married to someone dull, scared and also secretly bitchy, myself. My mum would have a field day and insist I move to the States to let her take control of my rotten life. Perhaps worse of all, one day Cherry might read these things and think I didn’t want her, that I don’t love her madly. Which I absolutely do. I just miss being in love with Stevie Cameron. She was fun. She always smelt nice. And I desperately need to try and find her again.

  So I pull back from trawling through the comments. Nothing good can come of it. Instead, I scroll back up Gin and Sippy Cups’ profile, to see what other kinds of things she posts about, and what kind of reaction she usually gets. Is this big? Is it normal?

  Just as I’m absorbing that she’s in Cambridge and is a part-time family lawyer, a new post pops up in her timeline, one of those that automatically feeds through from Instagram. It’s a picture of a pair of denim-clad legs, drenched in something like foamy coffee by the look of it. And just on the edge of the shot, on the very right-hand side, is a small hand holding a plastic dinosaur, also sploshed with liquid. She’s put up a caption underneath:

  ‘So today I’m standing with First-Time Mum. I’m #Notfineactually. Managed to get us out to a chi-chi coffee place, set Littlest Mr up with toys and colouring, savouring the smell of my cappuccino. When Dino Dan fancies a bit of rough-housing. So, just before I pack us up and drag two squealing misters into Primark to get me something, anything to wear, I thought I’d share the evidence that actually not every day is a “fine” one… If you’re having a very un-fine day, you’re not alone, loves xxx

  #mumlife #parenting #mumsofinstagram #toddlers #motherofboys #coffee #reallife.’

  A feeling of warmth, a deep tingle, spreads across my collarbone and I can’t help it but I hoot one giant, great laugh out loud, alone in my kitchen. Cherry gives a happy squawk from the floor, as if in solidarity.

  I scoop her up into my arms and jiggle her on my lap.

  ‘It’s not just me, Cherry Baby!’ I say through a ridiculous grin, and she gives me one of her long, unbroken stares where I could swear she understands everything that comes out of my mouth. It’s strange to feel such a connection with someone who can’t talk back, but this gorgeous pudding is somehow completely on my wavelength. And so, it seems, are loads of other mums out there, online.

  It’s not just me who feels these things sometimes. Not just me who gets vomit on their head and mistaken for a cleaner.

  I’m rereading, guiltily, vainly, when another post pops up: ‘PS First-Time Mum, where are you?! Can’t find you on any social media, no contact option on your blog. Come say hello. I think we’ll get on, yeah? xxx’

  * * *

  Cherry can not only stare deep into my soul, she is also a great karmic leveller. As if sensing my slightly inflated pride today, she’s decided to puncture it in a grand fashion by refusing to sleep. All. Bloody. Night.

  It’s 2.13 and I swear the red blocky numbers of the alarm clock have shown those digits for at least three hours by now. I’ve done bouncing with her on the gym ball, I’ve walked up and down stairs until my thighs just could not take any more, my throat is hoarse from whisper-singing. At about 1am I gave up and stuck Frozen on, which stopped her crying as she got lost in the colours and sounds, but did not lull her off to sleep. I suppose an epic story of sisterly betrayal and love will stimulate you, even at six months. And now, because I am out of ideas and energy and any sort of self-belief, I am swaying vigorously and ssshhhhing as tears fill my eyes. Cherry’s arms swing up at me as she cries, as if physically trying to get away from this rubbish mother she has. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say in a cracked voice. ‘Sorry, baby.’ I desperately want to be the mum that can fix her problems. I want to be the mum that gets it right. But here I am, failing and crying all over again.

  Something our NCT leader said once comes back to me: ‘When it gets too much, it’s probably because it is too much. Practise a bit of self-care. Leave the room for ten minutes and find your centre. If they’re crying, they can cry for a little longer and they’ll be fine. If you’re a mess and wear yourself down too far, nothing will be ever be fixed for you as a unit.’

  So with my hands shaking, I lay Cherry gently in her cot by my bed, her legs now furiously kicking at me as I straighten up. ‘Come on, my girl, bedtime. Mummy needs a little breather, but I’m not going far.’

  I leave the room on tip-toes and immediately lie down on the landing carpet.

  I wish Ted was here. God, I wish my mum was here. Even if she just made some of her foul herbal tea and patted me on the head it would be something. I don’t want to be alone with this baby that I can’t make happy. Just not now. In the daylight it’s somehow funnier, but in this soulless, empty, unending stretch of the night I can’t see the beginning or end of anything. I lose my whole sense of humour.

  My phone digs into me through my back pocket. I’ve been at this since 8pm so I haven’t even had dinner or got into my PJs. My m
ascara is forming crusty channels on my cheeks. 2.17am the clock display reads. So at 2.27am I will send myself back in there. I’ll give it another crack. Something will work. At some point.

  But I’m buggered if I know what that is, or when.

  Holding a breath in, I release it slowly, trying to fight the urge to cry all over again. Instead, I open WhatsApp.

  Stevie: Don’t suppose anyone else is having a mare of a night, are they? Cherry hasn’t slept one wink yet. One wink!!!!!! She’s getting me back for that unheard-of nap at the parent and baby fair. Little sod.

  Stevie: Who I love unconditionally. And this is not her fault. She’s just being a baby.

  ‘Please someone start typing,’ I pray. ‘Please, please, pl—’

  Nelle is typing…

  Nelle: YES!

  Nelle: To misquote the Kings of Leon, these nips are on fire. I’m on Joe’s ninth night feed and this guy is clearly a buffet kind of baby because he has a little bit, gets bored, twenty minutes later obviously wonders, ‘Do they have a pudding table? Maybe a cheese board?’ And he wants back in.

  Nelle: You can complain about your baby, Stevie. I won’t be on to Childline, you know. Goes without saying that you can adore someone and never want to be apart from them, while also wishing they would just chill out and be cool and let you have a shower once in a while.

  Stevie: Phew. I mean, not to your ravaged nips but to it being normal to wish you could just pause your baby for a few hours and come back to them when you’re ready and can skip though the boring bits, like an episode of Grand Designs. Did you get any good bookings out of that fair, by the way?

  Nelle: Sadly, no. A few nibbles, but nothing really profitable. And those mad diamond anniversary brothers have pulled out because they still can’t agree. We’ve got the deposit but I could have done with the whole event going through the books, if I’m honest. Party planners are not at the top of most people’s lists these days. I blame Pinterest! Everyone’s making their own piñatas and wedding favours and all that jazz. Chuh. But I can’t get into this in the wee small hours – it’s too depressing. Joe has finished his latest snack. Let’s hope it’s his last. Wishing you sleeping pixie dust, too, Stevie. Night xx

  As I put down my phone I realise the house is completely quiet. Which wouldn’t freak most people out at 2.17am in your average domestic household. But – Cherry?!

  I rush back into the bedroom but instead of finding her blue and lifeless, attacked by a fox or a possessed blind cord or some freak spontaneous blanket fire, I see her ruddy and blush-coloured at her cheeks, snuffling her little snore and totally, completely, beautifully asleep.

  No way! She fell asleep all by herself? I mean, with some screeching but otherwise unaided by song or jiggle or white noise machine. Magic.

  Forgetting how unforgettably angry I am with him, I message Ted straight away.

  Stevie: OK, so baby was screaming all night, literally not been asleep all evening and it’s now 2.20. I got so desperate I just put her in her cot and walked away. She only went and fell asleep on her own! Maybe she doesn’t like being cuddled any more?! Maybe she’s got some weird kind of hatred of physical contact but if it means she sleeps I’m cool with that. Oh god, I can take my jeans off now and get some sleep myself.

  I do just that: I slip my jeans off without a sound, soundlessly get under the duvet and fall into a deep, cavernous sleep.

  * * *

  When I am woken up at 7.15 by a grumpy mewing coming from the cot, for a moment in my half-asleep brain, when I see those numbers on the clock, I think it’s the alarm and I need to get up, jump in the shower, pull on a nice Banana Republic suit and get to work. But of course it’s not. It’s Cherry, realising she is now starving hungry after a five-hour stretch of sleep. Some kind of night-time record for her, but I can’t take all that much pleasure in it seeing as it was preceded by a record six-hour stretch of hysteria for both of us. It would be like having a really nice Sunday lie-in after running the marathon twice.

  I swing her up into my arms then settle back against the uncomfortable headboard so she can feed away. She latches on like she’s never had a drop of milk in her life.

  ‘Ouch! Steady on, baby girl, it’s not going out of fashion.’

  Luckily, the one rule of Mum Life I have totally cracked is that you never, ever settle down for a feed without your phone in grabbing distance. Sweet, sweet internet distractions.

  Breastfeeding may be natural and free and instant and full of wonderful antibodies or whatever but, man, is it dull. It’s like you’ve got to guard a big watermelon on your lap for half an hour (never mind the time it takes to wind and wind again and then mop up little mouthfuls of puke from your PJs). And sometimes they have these great big mammoth feeding sessions, when you seriously think you are going to be medically dehydrated, and twenty minutes later they’re hungry for more! When you’ve barely had a breather to put on some deodorant and play a bit of online Scrabble for sanity.

  I wake up my phone and feel a small hit of happiness that Ted has messaged me back.

  Ted: Great.

  I have to scroll back up to see what this lame effort is in reply to. Oh, right, my giddy announcement that Cherry had nodded off by herself, a huge milestone in our sleep-deprived lives. And he says ‘Great.’ Not even ‘Great!’ Let alone ‘WOW! Well done, thanks for raising such an awesome kid, sorry to desert you like an absolute cad but I’m so in awe of how well you’re doing on your own, regardless!’

  The small hit of happiness fades into a dot of annoyance. Yes, he’s got to work and he’s got lots to juggle. But this is my work and I always find the energy to dig up some enthusiasm when he tells me tales of getting a new client on the books or a pay rise for his best salesperson, Katy.

  Cherry is still chomping away, making porcine grunts of pleasure every now and then. Knowing that she’s happy and feeding and growing ruddier and healthier by the ounce relaxes me. It’s something so basic and natural but it’s still a big achievement to keep a baby fed, however you do it.

  She’s sorted, so what else can I entertain myself with? I flick through my other recent messages and my eyes stop on Nelle’s confession that she could really do with some more business right now. I hope she isn’t in any real financial trouble. I’ve really struggled to stretch out my three months of full pay from work and I just have the one kid to manage – she’s got three and I’m not sure family businesses pay you for your maternity leave? Not that it sounds like she’s getting much of a break from it, answering mad Moulin Rouge emails and slapping on the rainbow wig for the Parent and Baby Fair.

  She’s right, though – people don’t use party planners the way they used to. When Ted and I got married I also got loads of ideas from blogs and Pinterest and Instagram – in addition to my PR experience – and spent my lunchbreaks Googling ‘Make Your Own Photo Booth’ tutorials and where to bulk buy croquet sets for the lawn games I had envisioned. (Such a huge error in the end, though, as seven-year-old nephews can NOT be trusted with wooden mallets.) But there must still be a niche for professional planners, though – just a new niche. Not so much mini quiches and string quartets as… well, what? My brain is foggy with a sort of jet lag from my weird bedtime. I open up my notes app and under my to-do list of ‘Clean bathroom, buy new lightbulb for porch, find other running shoe’ I add, ‘Think about how I can help Nelle. Niche parties?!’

  I try to find a way to lean my head back without the top of the headboard pressing horribly into the back of my neck. Nope. Every day I think I’m going to tie a cushion here to stop this very thing happening and every day I lose my ‘spare’ ten minutes somewhere along the way.

  ‘I think just a quiet day for you and me today, Chezza. None of the dramas of yesterday, or last night.’ I gently pull on her toes through her sleepsuit. ‘Just you and me and some tummy time exercises. Then maybe three times round the park at nap time, yup? Quiet. Mummy’s knackered and it’s not even seven am.’

  Huh, I th
ink, that would make a good blog title.

  And then I jolt forward, knocking Cherry off her feeding supply and sending her purple with rage. ‘Sorry, sorry. Hang on, here you go.’ I get her latched back on, her jaw working furiously once more, and feel a rush of remembered adrenaline shoot through my system. The blog, the repost, all those reads…

  I open up Facebook and head back to Gin and Sippy Cups. Her post reaching out to First-Time Mum is still there, and has 400 or so likes, to boot. What should I do? It has meant so much that she got what I was saying, that she put it out there for her followers and that they also gave it a big cyber nod of recognition. How do I say thanks for that without revealing the ‘real’ me?

  My heart is drumming like the washing machine on spin cycle as I open up my Facebook settings and log off. After a pause, I hit ‘New to Facebook?’ and make First-Time Mum her very own profile. No details, definitely no pics, just the basics and a link to the blog. I mean, I could be anyone doing this in First-Time Mum’s name, but it would be a lame kind of identity theft for a Russian hacker… ‘Dimitri, I have great idea! Let’s pretend to be slightly depressed, boring housewife with loud child.’

  Then I reply to Gin and Sippy Cups post:

  Hello! First-Time Mum here, shyly peeking her head out from under the stinky laundry pile. Thanks so much for the share, can’t tell you how chuffed I am to hear from you all. More blogs soon, sleep permitting… x

  I bite my lip. Hope it doesn’t sound too cocky. Oh, sod it: these parents understand. They get it. They’re probably about to face their day on five hours of sleep, too. This is my tribe. These are my people. My phone vibrates in my hand. Ooh, maybe a Like!

  But, even better, it’s a message from Will.